Barcelona

I left my family a day before their departure and went with the group early last Saturday morning as we headed for a 3-day retreat. We stayed in a 400 yr-old villa outside of Barcelona. Some of the required events for the weekend included the team all cooking a dinner together, eating one of the breakfasts in complete silence, and doing one activity as an entire group. We also had more specific tasks, like plan for the Eurofirms Human Capital Leaders conference at GP in a week and brainstorm new ideas for the GP website. But overall, it was a very low-key weekend. It was a perfect chance to get away from rainy Berlin, reconnect with people in the other strategic project groups, and enjoy some relaxation time with each other. The last day of our trip, on our way back to the airport, we took a quick detour into Barcelona to see La Sagrada Familia church, eat lunch on La Rambla, and see the Port of Barcelona. I've posted a number of pictures of the trip so that you can have a better idea of where we stayed and what we did.

The Inside Scoop

Guest blogger: Julie Apple

10 little known facts about the filming of The Sound of Music, starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer

1) Also considered for the leading male role were the famous actors Walter Matthau, Sean Connery, and Yul Brynner
2) Gretl was not able to swim…. So in the scene where the children fell into the lake, Maria was supposed to catch her. During take two, however, they fell on opposite sides of the boat and Gretl was left on her own... bobbing under a few times. A nearby crew member had to jump in and rescued the sinking youngster. When the director announced that they were going to do a take three, the poor, terrified Gretl threw up on the spot all over Louisa. Thus, a take three never happened and take two is the one that appears in the movie. Next time you watch, look out for Gretl's bobbing head.
3) There were actually two gazebos that were used for the filming of “Sixteen Going on Seventeen,” one for the outside shots and another, larger one for the inside scenes.
4) During the filming of “Sixteen Going on Seventeen,” Liesl's slippers had no tread. So when she leaped onto the bench, she disastrously slipped and flew right through the window. Despite a sprained ankle, they filmed the scene anyway. Consequently, if you look closely while watching the scene, you’ll notice that Liesl’s ankle is wrapped up with an ace bandage. (This detail has been edited out of the DVD version.)
5) The gazebo scene between Maria and the Captain where they sang “Something Good” was filmed in the dark because Julie and Chris could not keep from laughing at the strange, raspberry sounds coming from the archaic lighting fixtures. After many unsuccessful tries at taping the scene with the lights on, Chris proposed that they do the scene with the lights off so that no one would be able to tell if they were laughing.
6) Two separate palaces were used for the filming of the Von Trapp estate. One was used for the front and back of the building itself and another one was used for the backyard gardens and lake.
7) The singing voice of the Captain did not belong to Christopher Plummer.
8) In the song “So Long, Farewell!” when Kurt miraculously hits the high note in his solo, it is not his voice that is used. It’s actually a female’s voice!
9) Only the outdoor and the wedding scenes were actually filmed in Austria. Everything else was recorded back in Hollywood.
10) In the final scene, where the whole Von Trapp family climbed up the mountains, the Captain was directed to carry Gretl on his back. Chris, however, refused to do so saying “I will not carry that fat girl!!!” As a result, a skinnier stand-in was required.

The Hills Are Alive

True confession: The Sound of Music is my favorite movie. Now granted, when Julie and Steve were in their hey-day of acting, I did grow a bit weary of it after seeing 14 different stage versions of the play. But I can still watch the film over and over and know all the songs by heart. So when Mom suggested we take a day trip to Salzburg during our weekend at Munich, I was all over the idea. While in Salzburg, we took the highly-cheesy but oh-so-entertaining SOM bus tour through the city and surrounding countryside, stopping at all the places featured in the film. Julie and I had particular fun re-enacting some of the scenes from Do-Re-Me.

I guess I should back up a bit - my family came to visit me in Germany! Mom, Dad and Julie arrived in Munich Friday morning (sadly the boys and Rachel couldn't make it over). They spent their first day fighting jet lag and seeing a bit of Munich, and then I flew down and met up with them Friday evening. On Saturday, we went into the Bavarian countryside and visited a couple of the impressive castles: Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau. Both were gorgeous! Then Sunday was the trip to Salzburg. We did get a bit of real history in while there too by touring Mozart's residence. Here are my pictures from the weekend (warning, there are lots!). I flew back to Berlin Sunday night, having seen nothing more of Munich than the train station and hotel (didn't even make it to the famous beer halls). The rest of the family drove up through Germany and arrived at my place this evening.

Here is a link to my Dad's blog where he's going to be capturing much of their adventures. I'm also hoping to persuade a couple of them to author some guest blogs on my sight this week.

Back "Home" in Berlin

Ahhhh, jet lag. It's 12:30 am Berlin-time and I'm wide, wide awake. Even though I managed, with great determination, to keep myself awake all day yesterday when I arrived, and despite all my good intentions of starting the 2nd half of the program well-rested, it's just not meant to be. Instead of vainly lying in bed, I thought I'd post photos and highlights from my trip home (that is, my other home - B'more).

I felt like I was back in college with a glorious 2-week break around Christmas! I am truly spoiled. It was great to be home for Christmas (I was singing "There's no place like home for the holidays" and "I'll be home for Christmas" on the plane back)! On Christmas Eve day, most of the family (Steve had to work) played a couple games of bowling. I solidified my status of worst bowler in the family, though I narrowly squeaked by with the title!

Rick, characteristically, was the most focused of us all:

Julie: "Did I do that?"

I got to catch up with so many friends while I was home! Here's a picture of Susan and me at her wine-tasting party.

Also, just before I came home, Becca moved out of our old apartment to a new place in Cockeysville. So last Saturday, she and I spent the day re-painting our beautiful, green wall to boring white, cleaning and scrubbing the apartment, and basically removing all traces that a fabulous duo had once lived there. It was a sad moment. But at least I got to spend good quality time with my BX ! At least we finished off the day in good style eating Cheeburger and watching a marathon of Heros episodes. I don't have any pictures, but Becca has posted a couple on facebook.

Over New Year's, I went down to Richmond and got to catch up with Kate and Marianne (college roommates). Marianne grew up in Germany and it was great for both of us to compare experiences. My poor, dear Kate got a kidney stone the day before I arrived, so we laid low for the holiday but enjoyed spending time together. We did venture out on New Year's Day for a walk through her neighborhood.

Kate, her mom and Halley, who could hardly contain her excitement:

What a lovely neighborhood:
And look, this one is for sale! just kidding :-)
Packing to come home was no fun...

No wonder my suitcase weighed a ton. Seriously, when do I think I'm going to have time to read/watch all this.
I got back yesterday morning and it was nice to come home to my apartment, though my poinsettia didn't quite make it the 2 weeks:

It had snowed while I was gone and was actually so cold that the Spree River was somewhat frozen:

Welcome back to Berlin!

And now, I'll try once again to sleep.

Frohe Weihnachten!

Merry Christmas! Here is a collection of Christmas related photos from the past week or so. Most of them are either from the PwC-Berlin office Christmas party a week ago Friday or our GP Christmas party on our last night in town. The office Christmas party was in an old church that is now used for large social events. It was a rather odd venue for the customary drinking/dancing, but charming nonetheless. Despite my plans to have an early night, I was there until 2 am, which made catching a 6:45 am train to Prague the next morning especially delightful!

As part of the GP party we had a massive gift grab with an added twist. The twist was designed to raise money for charity (we try to incorporate elements of fundraising into many of our activities). In order to steal or "protect" a gift, you had to pay a fee. However, the end result was that most people liked the gift they got and paid to protect it, and so there was limited stealing or swapping... which takes away all the fun! So not an added element I'd recommend again.

Since it doesn't look like I'll get around to posting separate blogs about my most recent trips, here are pictures from Amsterdam and Prague. The trip to Amsterdam was especially great because almost half of my classmates went, so it felt like a big event. Rens, our Dutchman, organized a nice dinner for us on Saturday evening and then we went to see Boom Chicago, an improv show which was hilarious. Other highlights from the weekend included the Van Gogh Museum, Anne Frank's house, and a boat tour through the canals. Sadly, the customs officials coming back to the States confiscated the tulip bulbs I bought at the flower market there. Apparently, I didn't buy the expensive pre-certified bulbs. So no tulips from Holland. Guess I'll have to go back. :-)

The trip to Prague was a much small crowd - just 5 girls. It was freezing cold the weekend we were there (even with four layers and leggings to keep warm), so we would walk around outside for a bit and then duck into a shop or cafe to warm up. We walked along the Charles Bridge and visited the old Jewish Quarter, but otherwise most of our time was just spend wandering through the town (and, of course, the ubiquitous Christmas market). It was a beautiful, old city and another place I could go back to again!

Finally, last week we had a photographer take a picture of our class:

Finished!

Well, not exactly... but today was the end of the first half of the GP program. It seems like time is flying by. The past two weeks have reminded me of coming to the end of the semester at college when all your projects and assignments come due. In addition to our regular workload, there were also a couple longer-term projects that had to be finished before the break. Consequently, the days (and nights) have been packed and sleep was lower on the priority list. However, though there was a lot of work, it wasn't too stressful, which makes a big difference.
A couple of the sessions we've had recently include Present with Power and Strategic Problem Solving. The Present with Power session was focused on communicating with impact. The consultant shared a number of really valuable principles to keep in mind when creating a presentation and was also a rich source of tips and tricks. I was amazed how quickly he could take a situation and craft the perfect way of communicating, quite a skill to have. After this session, the bar was really raised for our next presentations! Shortly afterwards, we had to individually present an overview of our local practice - what kind of work we do and what our local market was like. Hearing each person describe their work highlighted a number of the similarities and differences across territories and also gave me a much better understanding of the range of services PwC provides, especially in the Advisory line of service.
The Strategic Problem Solving module presented a framework for approaching a problem and was based on the McKinsey model of analyzing an issue. The theory they presented - define your key question, construct an Issues Tree that addresses everything you'll need to know to answer your question, organize the research, conduct the analysis, and determine the results - was very logical and was especially helpful in showing how a large question or issue could become manageable with the right approach. It was a 2-day session, with most of the time allocated to team exercises. In our teams, we were given a large, business case and had to apply the strategic problem solving concepts to solve it with the final output being a presentation of recommendations to the company's board. This project was one of the culprits that contributed to the lack of sleep, as most teams were in the office until past midnight finalizing their results/presentation. The exercise led nicely into our coming strategic projects.
While the first half of the program is structured to teach us various analytical, leadership, and communication tools, the second half is focused on a strategic project where we can implement and practice much of what we learned. However, the stakes are higher because each strategic project is sponsored by one or more senior partners who have a vested interest in the output. There are 3 project teams in Berlin and the one I am working on is developing a strategy for the Public Sector in Germany. It is sponsored by the leader of the German Public Sector. Luckily for our team, his office is in the same building as GP, so hopefully we'll have plenty of opportunities to interact with him during the course of the project.
Well, that's a summary of the program content of the past couple weeks. In the next day or two I'll also post more about some of my recent weekend trips. I'm coming back to Baltimore this Saturday and will be around for almost 2 weeks, so hopefully I'll have a chance to catch up with many of you during that time.

Good to Great

Have you ever heard of, or read, the book Good to Great, by Jim Collins? The author conducted an extensive research project with the goal of identifying what causes a company to go from being merely 'good' to truly 'great'. Based on his research, he puts forth in this book a number of characteristics that define 'great' companies. This morning we had a partner from the Australia practice visiting and he facilitated a session on this book. He took us through a critical evaluation of PwC based on the criteria given in the book. It provoked a lot of interesting discussion among the group.

This week PwC has been conducting an online forum to solicit input about our assurance (i.e. audit) business. It's a 72-hour forum during which people can go online and post comments or respond to questions. It's essentially a big chat room or blog. The Genesis Park participants have been helping the monitors of the forum with some of the more detailed work. Thankfully, with the group in D.C. helping too and the 6-hour time difference, no one has to be up in the middle of the night. Our role is to be continuously reading through the posts and then summarizing the themes and topics periodically to report to the monitors, who then might respond to comments or post additional questions to encourage debate. There's been a health level of participation in the forum (I think we were pleasantly surprised). I took my turn at monitoring yesterday, and found many of the comments to be very interesting. For example, one person suggested we change the name of an "audit" because of the negative perception associated with the word. Another person thought we should broaden the knowledge base of our employees by hiring 1 analyst for every 10 clients. Our next challenge will be to create an overall summary of the forum and strategic suggestions.


On a different note, I finally visited the Berlin Zoo this past weekend. Going to the zoo in the winter is a great way to avoid the crowds! I wasn't sure what to expect, but I was quite impressed with the layout and the variety of animals. Practically all the animals were out and about too, despite the cold weather. Tragically, I forgot my camera. If the admission wasn't so steep (12 euro!), I'd go back again. Surprisingly, there were a ton of babies - baby giraffe, panda, polar bear, zebra, hippo, monkeys, lions, and of course my favorite, the cutest baby elephant! The cubs were probably about 1-2 months old, but the rest of the babies were probably closer to a year.


While I didn't get any pictures of the cute babies, I do have pictures from my day trip to Dresden to share. One of my favorite parts was seeing this Raphael painting Sistine Madonna which has the famous little cherubs at the bottom. It's funny to me how they are a relatively minor part of the original painting, but now the most well known. The other exciting part of the trip was renting a car and hitting the autobahn to get there. The road trip was a great chance to see more of the German countryside... and listen to "All I Want for Christmas" about 13 times!